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Friday, 31 July 2015

Thread used in that picture is a Lizbeth size 20 and a light yellow 100% rayon that I've had for a long time. They used to sell this kind of thread to be doubled with wool, for knitting.

Leaving a little gap before the mock bead, it helped me to put it better in place. Split rings are unbalanced because the second part is thicker, looked to me longer by sight so I shortened it.

About the little square of previous post, thank you very much for your nice comments and for playing the "pattern hunt"!

Pattern is from Priscilla tatting book #2, a so beautiful resource of little motifs, the square was hidden in a large design of a pillow at page 18, picture 47. The same pattern has been used for a lovely frame for the cover page. Charming!

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

... and so the bookmark, even you all there outside have been keeping me distracted with great tips and inspirations from previous post! As a result, this time the tail is very short!!! I think I'd start a bracelet, but with thicker thread. That was dmc, size 80. I added a better picture in flickr, click on image to follow the link:

Another pic: do you recognize the similar pattern from Mrs Odum's daisy?

This is the back:

...and the tail, where I played with a sort of vertically curled rings, that is first I tatted a daisy (all rings 6-6-6-6) with the red-purple thread and those little rings 6ds with the white, in the same manner that I did them in the tail but around the thread over the hand; then I tatted rings 6 vsp 12 +(join to vsp) 6, "hugging" two contiguous purple rings:

... the back of the daisy:

Love those colors together, they are similar to colors of this flower that I bought, but sorry I can't remember its name:

I'd also like showing a panorama, in the back you can see the Gran Sasso mountain, the highest in the center of Italy. It's taken from a place used to be populated till 1960s, then emptied for emigration and a lot of house ruined because people never came back.

There's a lovely silence, only birds and wind, most time of the year. Then some of the houses get to life again in August, when people, usually sons or grandsons of old residents, come on holiday.

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Disclaimer: tatting mock beads with size 80 thread, instead of using real beads is just an insane personal choice... You're warned. Moreover, handmade tatted beads could differ in size due to tatter's mood and irritability, but could also differ in shade due to hand washing soap unavailability. Ugh!

Thread dmc size 80, worked with 3 shuttles. Split rings, 3rd thread is carried inside the second half of each split ring.

Monday, 27 July 2015

This post was supposed to be published on 21th... Uhm, forgetting a post wasn't in that list ( http://www.buzzfeed.com/robynwilder/problems-all-absent-minded-people-will-relate-to ) !
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July flied.

Here has been very hot, hands have sweat for all the month and tatting has been slowed down. Even during those two days of the event organized by our local association, on 11th & 12th of July , I didn't tat, but chatted a lot. It was a nice time, with friends who kindly came, despite boiling - for our standard - temperatures. There's a nice photo-reportage in a friend's site here: www.merlettoitaliano.it
I'm in some of the pictures, wearing a blue top with tatting on, the same tatting that I move from one top to another, as long as I put on weight and grow in size!

Actually I started something, just because of my personal challenge: tatting a bookmark per month.

Thought about a starfish, then changed my mind because I tried to twist a long chain and couldn't remember what I wanted to do.

So I started a chain of split ring with layered rings on, but I forget shuttles somewhere here around. It was a great opportunity for tiding up my tatting corner in the kitchen...

I found a prototype of quad_2, it looks to me like a round of minnows surrounded by starfish, a very summer subject, so I started one bookmark with that pattern. Actually, when it came to the pattern, I found an oversight, that means the pattern needs to be rewritten. Sigh! I'm so sorry, "lack of concentration" status is a constant in my life...

Then, completely discouraged, I started playing with curled rings again. It seems that I found a rithm now. It could be, maybe, the starting of the bookmark of july, and we are already at the end of this month. I can't let me distracted any more. Can I do it?

Sunday, 5 July 2015

Prologue.
Last summer I received a vintage collar tatted with a silk thread, which had belonged to one of my many aunts for decades, tatted probably between the two wars. I've been so happy to share the pattern and tat it again to grasp old hidden tatting secrets, the way the old tatter choose to cope with rings and chains. It could have been original or may be not, I don't know, but the pattern actually it is simple, fast and attractive.

The story.

I've still browsed Pinterest, even if I don't rather pin.

There're more and more broken links but a lot of inspirational artworks. Following active links, I've discovered a discrete amount of copied books, a pity, but at least in one case I'd like to share a positive feedback: I got to know via Pinterest the existence of a book by a Czech lady, "Frivolitky" by Milena Tomkova published in 2003, 70 pages. In one page, pinned by someone, I found the same pattern of the collar. Of course I rushed to look through all pages and it's a lovely book, with many motifs' patterns, it would be worth to buy even I can't read czech. I googled it but I couldn't learn if it's available.

Epilogue.
Considering that it can't be assumed that the collar's pattern was original, nor I can say if the book is a collection of vintage patterns, neither someone could know if their grandmother born first than the one who tatted the collar... I don't know if it's fair to leave the pattern in this blog or not. What do you think? Is it a silly question, like the chicken and the egg? What should I do?

I've very little tatting and sewing to show, no progress on Anne Orr's doily, no ideas for a bookmark for july... Small coin/shuttle purses that I've sewn for a lacemakers' meeting, it will be held next weekend in my city. I've played with rings vertically curled, too.

Ciao,
Ninetta

Googling "frivolitky Mileny Tomkove" I found this site where it is possible to order the book, even if it's not so clear to me how to...http://www.volny.cz/vtomek/(in the page "Literatura")

Saturday, 27 June 2015

Hand-made tatting pollution, I mean, with a massive help by scissors - but eventually the solution came...

I loved Muskaan's saga on curled rings: every curled ring alternative has been unfolded (part of which ignored by the designer herself) and intriguing hypothesis rolled out.

She mentioned that a curled ring must be sized to be curled, she's right, in fact a ring smaller than 20ds it'd be difficult to fold. But the "why-not" question, about how to curl little 6-6 rings, was intriguing.

I've played around little rings without a clear direction or pattern in mind, it seemed they were really too little to be folded.

And the "what-if" actually came from tatting with beads, how they can be placed in the thread round the hand and trapped at the base of a ring.

A lot of trials and errors this time! But if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Even Lizbeth teased me! They 've made a weaver's knot in one strand... (thread is size 80, Lizbeth colour 122 and yellow dmc colour 744) Sigh! Anyway it's a tatting game, I love it.

I only have to hide and cut ends and it's finished.

So, I'm happy with my new bookmark-of-the-month and with the 3D curled effect too. What can I do, I can't help producing tatting pollution...

Ciao,
Ninetta

P.S. I tested my new celtic tatting shuttles but it's been wasted more of size 80 thread. The thin shuttle is not so thin to pass even through a 32ds ring. It asked for a second attempt with thicker thread. Solution or pollution again?